エクセルシア盛岡中央高校デジタルブック　Vol.20

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the class time and did not spend time for reviewing them at home. I did not have a sense of crisis about my poor English proficiency, and I was thinking too lightly about studying abroad: “Once I am there, things will work out all right.”　　 Since I went to abroad in such condition surely I could not understand English most of the time. I could not keep up with the speed of conversation of my host family and teachers, moreover I did not know enough English vocabularies and proficiency to understand them. After all I could not understand what they say. There were students from Osaka and Tokyo in the school that I went in Australia. I was with Ayaka who is from Osaka all the time because we took the same classes. We were aware of the need to speak in English to each other, but we could not use English, instead we spoke in Japanese. Plus, the teacher that is in charge of the study abroad program can speak Japanese, so I was talking Japanese with the teacher too. I answered “Yes” or “Ok” even if I could not understand what they said because of my poor English and I also got nervous when my host family and a host mate talked to me and teacher asked to me “Are there anything that you can’t understand?”. I regretted that I did not ask them questions, and I realized how poor my English was. I wished I would have studied English more seriously before coming to Australia. 　　Ayaka who was with me all the time went back to Japan in September, I was the only Japanese left in my class. Kato who was from Tokyo is one year older than me, and she replied in English even if I or Ayaka talk to her in Japanese. I felt her determination not to use Japanese.　　The situation started to change when Ayaka had returned to Japan and the teacher who was in charge of the study abroad program and could understand Japanese had transferred from Seaford to the other school. The opportunity to speak Japanese had gone, and I was getting increasingly anxious.　　However, till this time I was getting used to English and I gradually became to be able to listen to English better than before. I started to talk to Sophy from Austria who joined my class in the middle of the year. But, Sophy was the initiator of our conversation and I hardly started conversations. Kato who is from Tokyo were trying to speak in English proactively. I asked her “why can you speak English so fluently?”, she answered “We are oversea students that come here to study English, so it is normal to make mistakes about English. Maybe Japanese think my English is fluent, but native speakers might ask me to repeat what I said. So, I try to explain as many as until the person understand me. Even if the other cannot understand, I will never give up explaining.” She actually tried to explain in various ways. Comparing to me who did not try to speak in English, she has acquired higher English proficiency than me.　　After passing a half of the year, a new host mate came from Brazil. I did not speak with host mates at all in the first half of my stay, so I decided to speak to the new host mate and to initiate the conversations. Before that, I did not have confidence in my English, so I was afraid of initiating a conversation in English. But thinking that the study abroad program would finish soon, I could gather my courage to talk to her. When I tried, I realized that I could speak more than I thought and she responded to me with smile. I started to talk to others by my own accord since then. I gradually talked to students that have never talked before term 4. Thinking back the first half of my stay in Australia, I assumed my English was poor and nobody could understand me. But I tried to repeat myself or explain in other ways if they could not understand me. That worked, and I was encouraged by these successes, and started to speak English. I was getting used to the school assignments and I was able to hand in the assignments before the due dates. I could also ask my teachers when I had questions and something I could not understand. 　　Actually, I was entering hospital for about a week, three days before going back to Japan. I was filled with anxiety because it was my first time to be hospitalized, and it happened in the foreign country. After going back to Japan, I learned that I am the first student who was hospitalized in the past 20 years of the studying abroad program. The hospital in Australia has a kitchen where we can eat or drink freely, and we can watch movies as many as we like. In such an environment the children can relax. It was near the Christmas, so a Santa Claus visited each patient, and there were volunteers bringing a dog around. I could relax, and staying in Study Abroad Program in Australia 1年間留学プログラムEXCELSIOR vol.20 ◆ CHUO国際教育フォーラム20回記念号79